The Brontës Went To Woolworths (1931)

review 1: 'If you're frightfully interested in people, you begin to KNOW things about them',, May 1, 2014This review is from: The Brontes Went to Woolworths (The Bloomsbury Group) (Kindle Edition)Selected as a relaxing, light-relief kind of read, this is a lovely but highly eccentric novel. Somewhat of the 'I capture the Castle' (Dodie Smith) school, but a lot more peculiar.Written in 1931, this follows three fairly well-to-do sisters in London. Katrine, the eldest, is forging a career on the stage; 11 year old Sheil has a governess - the unhappy and excluded Miss Martin - and middle daughter and narrator Deirdre, is a journalist and would-be authoress. The close family relationship is intensified by the girls' habit of crafting personalities for people they've only seen in the dist... moreance, until these characters become vividly alive to them...When they become introduced to Judge Toddington (who has long been the imagined character 'Toddy'), how will the acquaintance pan out?Three sisters, lonely governess, would-be author, make-believe world... the Brontes do come into it, but you'll have to read it and see how.Weird but highly entertaining.review 2: Wow...this is a weird book. For the first half I had difficulty even figuring out which characters were real, imaginary, real but personally unknown to the other real characters, or ghosts. Yes ghosts. By the second half of the book I had that figured out...for the most park. But honestly...these people are just NUTS. This story doesn't have much of a plot, but the little it as revolves around 3 sisters and their mother who 'amuse' themselves by imagining ELABORATE interactions with other characters that they have never actually met, some characters that are actors/actresses they have only seen perform, imaginary characters, and their own toys/dolls. But this all gets super complicated when the oldest sister is actually introduced to one of the most prominent characters in their fantasies, a court judge and his wife. Frankly at this point I expected 1 of 2 things happen...1. The judge things they are all stalking him and presses charges, and they end up in alysums.2. We the reader find out this is all in one persons head who actually IS in an alysum and the normal people in her live (doctors, nurses, other patients) are these other characters in her massive delusion. I DID NOT EXPECT these 2 characters to find it joyful and hilarious and join in. Seriously...WTF? If I found out people were following me, and living their lives as if I were actually a part of it, and snagging pictures of me from others, I would get a restraining order - not play along.So yeah...I guess you could say that I just did not get this book at all, and frankly if it hadn't been for a book club I would have given up a quarter of the way through. less